El Paso schools have emergency strategies in place

A sign on a post shows support for the victims of a gunman who opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School a day earlier as police officers stand at a road block, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in Sandy Hook village of Newtown, Conn. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims.

El Paso's schools are prepared with emergency plans to quickly respond and work with police if incidents like the shooting Friday in a Connecticut elementary school ever happen here, school officials said.

Safety measures -- including drills, lockdown procedures, security cameras, communication systems and phone numbers to report suspicious activities -- are in place at each school to protect students and teachers, officials added.

However, some of them said that the Connecticut school shooting, which left 27 dead, including 20 children, stresses the importance schools working closely with law enforcement agencies and of parents becoming involved in the safety of their children, not only in their academics.

"It is difficult to predict when will these kind of tragedies happen, but we are prepared to respond," said Victor Araiza, El Paso Independent School District Police Department chief.

His department has 40 licensed security officers who carry weapons and have been trained as police officers to shoot, if necessary, in threat situations where innocent lives are at risk, he said.

The district's officers, each of whom has a dispatch office linked with emergency calls that the El Paso Police Department receives, are on site in all middle and high schools and also guard elementary schools daily, he said.

The Socorro Independent School District has 25 armed officers who patrol all middle and high schools and who also work with the district's security guards to protect the rest the schools, Assistant Superintendent Pat O'Neill said.

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Other districts in El Paso don't have armed security officers, but school officials said that they in constant communication with local police to respond and investigate threats.

This week Canutillo Independent School District officials along with the El Paso police investigated a "tweet" made on Monday that alerted about a shooting in the district's high school Friday and next week.

The tweet resulted in a false alarm and police on Thursday identified an 11th-grader as the author of the message, said Canutillo district spokesman Gustavo Reveles. He said the incident is an example of the coordination that the district has with police to quickly respond to possible threats.

District officials said that schools have implemented drills and lockdown procedures to react to emergencies or threats.

"We practice periodically and let the students know what the different codes are and what they mean so they know what to expect," said the El Paso Catholic Schools Superintendent Elizabeth Anne Swartz. "We have the (El Paso Police Department) regional commands conduct the training, and they contact us if they see anything in the area that we should be aware of."

El Paso police assist schools with the Active Shooter Training, implemented nationwide after the shooting massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, spokesman Javier Sambrano said.

With that training, "administrators and students become familiar with what to expect and know what to do if a situation like that (what happened in Connecticut) happens here," he said.

Cynthia Marentes, spokeswoman for the San Elizario Independent School District, said that the district also conducts training with the El Paso County Sheriff's Office. The training is called Secure Our Schools.

"We have a pretty good lockdown system in place," Marentes said. "We have procedures that we have to go through that are very strict and detailed. The El Paso County Sheriff's Department provides us with training. It is very personal because you know you have to take it seriously. No one is allowed to come and go until officials have given it the all clear."

Some districts have also set up phone numbers for reporting suspicious activities.

Ysleta Independent School District, for example, has a 24-hour tip line as another security tool in the district, spokeswoman Patricia Ayala said.

Although schools and local police are doing a "good job" to protect students, there will never be enough security in schools, said Carlos León, who was the El Paso police chief from 1999 to 2003.

"It is still so easy for an individual to enter the ground of an open campus during breaks or lunch," he said.

León said that the "missing ingredient" in security school plans is parent involvement.

"A lot of parents are involved in their children's school academic activities but not in their security, whether they are going or coming from school," he said.

Gary A. "Rusty" Fleming Jr., spokesman for the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Office, said the Connecticut school shooting stresses the importance of having schools throughout the nation work with law enforcement agencies.

Recently, the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Office filmed an educational film on drugs. The film, "Operation Detour 2," was filmed in Van Horn and features a student who is taking illegal drugs, along with prescription drugs. The film ends with a school shooting.

"I took everything that happened across the nation and combined it and wrote a script," Fleming said. "We did a school shooting scene, where we had the Texas Ranger and their SWAT team go in. But I put that in there because I think it will impress upon the schools across the nation to work with their local law enforcement agencies so that they can be prepared."